Alison Watt (Scottish painter)

An exhibition of her work entitled Fold in 1997 at Edinburgh's Fruitmarket Gallery was the first introducing fabric alongside these figures, simultaneously suggesting a debt to the 19th-century French painter Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, as well as pointing to the possibilities of abstraction.

Watt exhibited during the 2004 Edinburgh Festival, installing a 12 ft painting Still, in the memorial chapel of Old St Paul's Church.

From January 2006 to February 2008, Watt served as the seventh and youngest Associate Artist at the National Gallery, London.

[2] She worked within the gallery, and explored an enduring fascination with one particular painting in the collection, Zurbaran's St. Francis in Meditation (1635–39).

The work she created in this time was displayed in a solo exhibition called 'Phantom', in the Sunley Room, running from 12 March to 22 June 2008.

In 2012, the Scottish National Portrait Gallery purchased her painting Self-portrait (1986/7) from her private collection for £20,000, to celebrate re-opening after a refurbishment.